The seed and the soil of your heart

Recently I changed the theme of my website here at BethJones.net, including the header to a beautiful sunflower. I love sunflowers. One reason is that they track the sun as the earth moves during the day. They always face the light. Even as sunflowers follow the sun and the light, may you and I as believers follow the Son and the Light of Life, Jesus Christ.

Our daughter Heather with her sunflowers

When recording my podcast today, I found out some amazing facts about sunflowers from MentalFloss.com:

Sunflowers were cultivated in North America as far back as 3000 BCE for food, medicine, dye, and oil;

They were brought to Russia for Royalty. Tsar Peter the Great was so fascinated by the sunny flowers that he saw in the Netherlands that he took some back to Russia;

By the 19th century the flowers had become so popular there, that Russia was planting 2 million acres a year;

Sunflowers need 6 to 8 hours a sun a day, and more is even better;

Flower buds and blossoms track the sun as the earth moves during the day; mature flowers remain facing east;

Sunflowers have a history of healing. Cherokee Indians used them to treat kidneys. Dakotas used them to sooth chest pain and pulmonary trouble;

Each sunflower is actually thousands of little flowers;

The heads, once empty of sunflower seeds, can be used for scrubbing pads to clean.

sunflowers

Each one of these facts are symbolic spiritually and could be a teaching lesson. We need the light of Christ (the flowers following the sunlight). Jesus is our healer and we have His healing power in us to heal and do miracles in Jesus’ name (sunflowers having healing qualities). God told us to multiply, fill the earth, and make disciples (each sunflower being thousands of flowers). The Word of God and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from our sins (the sunflower head being a cleaning pad). Interesting!

Sunflowers have many seeds. The Bible has a lot to say about seeds and sowing. In Luke 8:4-15, Jesus teaches about the farmer scattering seed.

Fresh sunflowers

I encourage you to read this passage and ask God what type of soil your heart has:

The soil where the seed was stepped on and the birds have come to take away the seed (the devil stealing the seed of God’s word to keep you from believing and obeying it)?

The rocky soil that caused the soil to die, because you aren’t deeply rooted in God’s word and temptation causes you to fall away from your faith?

The soil that has thorns which are the cares, riches, and pleasures of this world, choking out the word?

Or fertile soil where the seed grows and produces an abundant harvest of righteousness?

You can listen to my podcast on this topic here and subscribe at Podbean or on Itunes.

field of sunflowers

“In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not known which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.”–Ecclesiastes 11:6, ESV

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